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unfortunately it is all too often the situation
helper is to help the installer
duct sealing is low on the list.

I can only attest to what I see, like you
the areas that are easily seen are sealed..but
look a little further and the areas harder to access
are not sealed.

sorry this was how you spent your holiday, but
you can be sure that the hvac company will remember you!

personally this whole duct sealing fiasco is why I got into the business.

I'm still amazed at all you accomplished ..good for you!

Thanks for the kind words.

Another thing I have so far had trouble finding here, is anyone who has a Ductblaster. I guess duct leakage is just not a big thing here with most ducts in conditioned space. I would have liked to have the duct leakage tested before insulating, but it seems only way will be blower door test which I have scheduled for later in year once house sealing is complete (another project!). It's a bit too late then so just hope our sealing is good enough!

We are hoping to get average of R12 insulation on ducts - Maybe lose 1250BTU/Hr on cold winter days? Not so bad. But IF we have say 100cfm leakage with outside air at 10F and heat pump discharge at 100F, wouldn't that mean we would lose 9720 BTU/Hr of the units 38000 btu/hr capacity? If so, on those cold days, we lose about 11,000 btu/hr. to attic. Ouch!

At 10F, COP for our unit is 1.9 and it consumes about 5.9Kw (20k BTU/hr) in producing 38,000 btu/hr of heat. But because of losses, we only get 38-11=27k Btu/hr. In effect COP has dropped to 1.35

I too am concerned about the "helper". I am not 100% sure I am getting through to the contractor on the importance of sealing the existing ducts.

If the duct sealing is an add on item to a proposal then you definately are not getting through to the contractor on the importance of duct sealing. We do "minor duct sealing" any time we install a new unit which is almost exactly what you described with a helper sealing obvious leaks while they are doing any duct work required on the installation.

If you want to get through to the contractor on how important this is then ask him to do a proposal for a complete duct sealing and they will almost surely be happy to oblige. In lieu of that you will get about 1/2-1 hour of helper with a bucket of mastic, and I can't fault the contractor for that.